Science news

• Prehistoric 'furball' had itchy skin disease: study

  14-10-2015 23:51
  
  A rat-like critter that scampered between the feet of dinosaurs grew hair like modern mammals and probably had the same itchy ringworm afflicting pets and people today, according to a study published Wednesday.
  
  Read more

• VIDEO: Close-Up: Award-winning wildlife photos

  14-10-2015 23:47 via bbc.co.uk
  
  An image of warring foxes has won the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
  
  Read more

• Prominent astronomer resigns over student sexual harassment

  14-10-2015 23:47
  
  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A prominent astronomer resigned Wednesday from the University of California, Berkeley, after an investigation found he sexually harassed female students over many years, two top administrators said.
  
  Read more

• Bell hit with $1.25M fine for planting 4-star reviews for phone apps

  14-10-2015 23:15 via cbc.ca
  
  Canada’s Competition Bureau has slapped Bell Canada with a $1.25 million fine for encouraging employees to plant glowing online reviews for two new company phone apps.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• NASA Picks New Rocket Rides to Launch Small Satellites

  14-10-2015 23:14
  
  NASA has awarded a total of $17.1 million to three companies to launch miniscule cubesats, which to date have had to tag along as secondary payloads on big rockets. "We're excited for the competition," Wiese added.
  
  Read more

• VIDEO: Australia feral cat cull sparks anger

  14-10-2015 23:13 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Celebrities have condemned plans by the Australian government to cull two million feral cats.
  
  Read more

• Modern humans out of Africa sooner than thought

  14-10-2015 23:09
  
  Human teeth discovered in southern China provide evidence that our species left the African continent up to 70,000 years earlier than prevailing theories suggest, a study published on Wednesday said.
  
  Read more

• The Latest: Prominent astronomer officially steps down

  14-10-2015 23:08
  
  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The latest on the resignation of a prominent astronomer accused of sexually harassing female students at UC Berkeley (all times are local):
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• First known case of sexually transmitted Ebola reported

  14-10-2015 23:00
  
  A Liberian woman contracted Ebola in March by having sex with a survivor of the viral disease, researchers report.
  
  Read more

• Alaska governor wants 'more drilling' to deal with climate change

  14-10-2015 22:12 via cbc.ca
  
  The governor of Alaska has proposed a bold solution to help fund measures to cope with climate change: more oil drilling.
  
  Read more

• AP Source: Prominent astronomer resigning amid sex scandal

  14-10-2015 22:02
  
  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A prominent astronomer is resigning from the University of California, Berkeley, after an investigation found he sexually harassed female students, according to a senior administration official.
  
  Read more

• In Celebration of Ada Lovelace, the First Computer Programmer

  14-10-2015 22:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  A Q&A with artist Sydney Padua, whose graphic novel illustrates the Victorian mathematician’s friendship with inventor Charles Babbage
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
  Read more

• Baby dinosaur fossils found in 'Dragon's Tomb'

  14-10-2015 21:20
  
  A handful of baby dinosaur fossils complete with fragments of eggshells have been uncovered in Mongolia, researchers said Wednesday.
  
  Read more

• Babies need a break from teething toys to better learn sounds, study finds

  14-10-2015 21:17 via cbc.ca
  
  A University of British Columbia has found that there is a direct link between an infant's ability to distinguish speech sounds and tongue movements.
  
  Read more

• Evidence of earliest modern humans outside Africa found in China

  14-10-2015 21:16 via cbc.ca
  
  A trove of 47 fossil human teeth from a cave in southern China is rewriting the history of the early migration of our species out of Africa, indicating Homo sapiens trekked into Asia far earlier than previously known and much earlier than into Europe.
  
  Read more

• At Icy Saturn Moon Enceladus, Cassini Begins Final Close Encounters

  14-10-2015 21:09
  
  NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spent a decade studying Saturn and its family of moons. Cassini's first flyby, which occurred this morning at 6:41 a.m. EDT (3:41 PDT/1041 GMT), bringing the spacecraft within 1,142 miles (1,839 kilometers) of Enceladus.
  
  Read more

• 2015 becomes worst US wildfire year on record

  14-10-2015 20:49
  
  Wildfires in the western United States have made 2015 the country's most devastating fire year since at least 1960, despite the relatively small number of individual fires.
  
  Read more

• Developing Saurolophus dino found at 'Dragon's Tomb'

  14-10-2015 20:47
  Scientists describe a perinatal group of Saurolophus angustirostris, a giant hadrosaur dinosaur, all likely from the same nest, found at 'Dragon's Tomb' in Mongolia, according to a new study.
  
  Read more

• Canadian inventor tests new prototype of record-setting hoverboard

  14-10-2015 20:47 via cbc.ca
  
  This past May, Montreal inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru broke the world record for the longest hoverboard flight. Watch him test the next-generation prototype.
  
  Read more

• 'Cute furball' is best-preserved mammal from dinosaur age

  14-10-2015 20:46
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scurrying under the feet of dinosaurs in swampy terrain in Spain around 125 million years ago was a furry chipmunk-sized critter with tiny hedgehog-like spines, horny body armor and an unpleasant fungal hair infection.
  
  Read more

• Adolescent brains open to change

  14-10-2015 20:40
  
  Adolescent brains are still changing, a malleability that renders them particularly sensitive to the outside world.
  
  Read more

• (Bee)autiful Shot: Pollen-Covered Eyeball Wins 'Small World' Photo Contest

  14-10-2015 20:33
  
  More than 2,000 photographers submitted images to the 2015 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, but just 20 of those images were chosen as winners. The first-place picture of the bee's eye was taken by Australian photomicrographer Ralph Grimm, who spent 4 hours mounting the eye under a microscope and focusing the instrument to capture the stunning shot. Grimm, a high school teacher and former beekeeper, said that, in light of the ongoing collapse of bee colonies worldwide, he hopes hi
  
  Read more

• Sticky situation: Magnetic audiotape's potentially catastrophic degradation in storage

  14-10-2015 20:22
  Many of the more than 46 million sound recordings archived throughout the US carry the risk of being destroyed during an attempt to digitize them, because magnetic audiotape can deteriorate over time. A team of researchers is developing a means to readily assess the structural condition of magnetic tape, using non-destructive infrared spectroscopy to identify tapes that suffer from 'sticky-shed syndrome' and will fall apart on playback.
  
  Read more

• Rising seas will drown mangrove forests

  14-10-2015 20:21
  Mangrove forests around the Indo-Pacific region could be submerged by 2070, international research says. Even with relatively low sea-level rises, many mangrove forests had a poor outlook according to an ecologist.
  
  Read more

• Extra brain cells make males remember sex

  14-10-2015 20:21
  A pair of neurons have been found in the brain of male nematode worms that allow them to remember and seek sex even at the expense of food. These neurons, which are male-specific, are required for sex-based differences in learning, suggesting that sex differences in cognitive abilities can be genetically hardwired. This is important as very little is known about how brains vary to give the two sexes different preferences, aptitudes and judgments.
  
  Read more

• Biodiversity stabilizes ecosystems during climate extremes

  14-10-2015 20:21
  Can biodiversity help protect ecosystems from extreme conditions? A study of 46 grasslands in North America and Europe points to a promising answer: increasing plant diversity decreases the extent to which extremely wet or dry conditions disrupt grassland productivity.
  
  Read more

• Baby Duck-Billed Dinos Unearthed in 'Dragon's Tomb' Nest

  14-10-2015 20:12
  
  Scientists examining a roughly 1-foot-long (0.3 meters) piece of rock from the Dragon's Tomb site, which is located in the Gobi Desert, discovered at least three new baby Saurolophus angustirostris fossils. Saurolophus were large duck-billed hadrosaurs with distinctive crests on the top of their heads.
  
  Read more

• U.S. is growing more genetically diverse

  14-10-2015 20:00
  
  Young Americans are more genetically diverse than previous generations, a new DNA analysis reveals.
  
  Read more

• 125-million-year-old mammal fossil reveals the early evolution of hair and spines

  14-10-2015 19:45
  Discovered in Spain, the fossil of the newly described, 125-million-year old Spinolestes xenarthrosus is remarkably well-preserved, containing fur, hair follicles, hedgehog-like spines, organs and even a fungal skin infection. It pushes back the record of preserved mammalian hair and soft tissue by more than 60 million years.
  
  Read more

• Microbes may reveal colon cancer mutations

  14-10-2015 19:30
  
  Certain microbial mixes are associated with particular DNA mutations in colon cancer, a new study suggests.
  
  Read more

• Rapid formation of new stars in distant galaxies

  14-10-2015 19:24
  Galaxies forming stars at extreme rates nine billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today, researchers find.
  
  Read more

• Bubble plumes off Washington, Oregon suggest warmer ocean may be releasing frozen methane

  14-10-2015 19:24
  The location of bubble plumes off the Pacific Northwest supports the idea that gradual ocean warming at about a third of a mile down may be releasing frozen methane in the seafloor.
  
  Read more

• Fossil teeth show earliest sign of people in southern Asia

  14-10-2015 19:14
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of fossil human teeth from a cave in China show that people lived in southern Asia more than 80,000 years ago, researchers report.
  
  Read more

• Two Small Pluto Moons Get Their Close-Ups (Photos)

  14-10-2015 19:05
  
  Pluto's small moons are starting to come out into the light. The most jaw-dropping photos captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft during its historic July flyby of Pluto depict the dwarf planet or its largest moon, Charon. "Nix isn't very large, and there is a very fine line between an impact that will make a crater that big and one that will break Nix apart," New Horizons team member Simon Porter, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, wrote in a blog post last week.
  
  Read more

• Humans in Asia '20,000 years early'

  14-10-2015 19:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Fossil teeth from a cave in China are shaking up the traditional narrative of humankind's dispersal from Africa.
  
  Read more

• Long before going to Europe, humans ventured east to Asia

  14-10-2015 19:00
  
  Cave finds indicate modern humans reached southern China long before entering Europe.
  
  Read more

• Putin slams delays in building showpiece cosmodrome

  14-10-2015 18:38
  
  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday criticised delays in the construction of a new cosmodrome in the country's far east, which has been plagued by corruption and strikes over unpaid wages.
  
  Read more

• Feature: Why insects could be the ideal animal feed

  14-10-2015 18:15
  
  Advocates say raising livestock and fish on insect meal is easier on the planet
  
  Read more

• Major grant in limbo, NIH revisits ethics of animal-human chimeras

  14-10-2015 18:00
  
  Workshop to debate experiments in which human stem cells are added to animal embryos
  
  Read more

• Canadian wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year award with striking foxes photo

  14-10-2015 17:42 via cbc.ca
  
  A Canadian doctor who captured a deadly encounter between a red fox and an Arctic fox in the wilds of Northern Manitoba has been named Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2015.
  
  Read more

• Science of Sexy: Why Emilia Clarke Reigns Supreme

  14-10-2015 17:40
  
  In many ways, it's not surprising Esquire picked Clarke, who plays the fearless dragon rider and rightful heir to the Iron Throne on Game of Thrones. Data from the dating website OkCupid reveals that men up to the age of 50 rate women between the ages of 20 and 24 the most beautiful. "From the time you're 22, you'll be less hot than a 20-year-old, based on this data," Christian Rudder, one of the founders of OkCupid, told fivethirtyeight.com.
  
  Read more

• Lilly pill trumps Humira in arthritis study

  14-10-2015 17:06
  (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co's experimental pill for rheumatoid arthritis proved superior to Abbvie Inc's leading injectable Humira treatment in a large study, which analysts said could prod them to raise sales forecasts for the medicine.
  
  Read more

• Root fungi make or break monarchs' chances against parasite

  14-10-2015 16:57
  
  Fungi that live amid the roots of milkweed plants change the chemicals produced in the plant’s leaves, which can either aid or hinder a monarch butterfly’s ability to fight off parasites.
  
  Read more

• This Red Spot On Jupiter Is 2,000 Miles Longer Than The Diameter Of Earth

  14-10-2015 15:59
  
  In case you were still unsure of just how big outer space and the planets that inhabit are, this red dot on Jupiter could give you a bit of perspective.
  
  Read more

• Zimbabwe says 26 more elephants found killed with cyanide

  14-10-2015 15:26 via cbc.ca
  
  Rangers in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park have discovered the carcasses of 26 elephants at two locations, additional victims of cyanide poisoning.
  
  Read more

• Israeli engineer designs grounded drone delivery service

  14-10-2015 14:38
  
  Israeli industrial designer Kobi Shikar has come up with the concept of a parcel delivery drone that will never get off the ground - and that's just fine with him. The Transwheel Delivery Drone is a sensor-packed motorized unicycle that Shikar says could be an earthbound alternative to Amazon's futuristic plans to use drone multicopters to deliver packages to your front door. It's a compromise, Shikar believes, between the need for speedy delivery and the dangers of flying drones encroaching on
  
  Read more

• Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Exhibit Honors 1st Computer Programmer

  14-10-2015 14:24
  
  A century before the first computer was developed, an Englishwoman named Ada Lovelace laid the theoretical groundwork for an all-purpose device that could solve a host of mathematically-based problems. Widely credited as being the first-ever computer programmer, Lovelace's pioneering work is explored in a new exhibit that opens today (Oct. 13) at the Science Museum, London, in the United Kingdom. Tech geeks around the world are commemorating Lovelace's achievements today, as they do every year i
  
  Read more

• Twins! Toronto Zoo Welcomes 2 Baby Pandas

  14-10-2015 14:20
  
  Two giant-panda cubs were born today (Oct. 13) at the Toronto Zoo, becoming the first pandas ever born on Canadian soil. The zoo's female giant panda, Er Shun, gave birth to the first cub early this morning, at 3:31 a.m. EDT. The first cub weighed 6.6 ounces (187.7 grams), and its slightly younger twin weighed 4 ounces (115 g).
  
  Read more

• Shriek Science: Simple Physics Powers Extreme Roller Coasters

  14-10-2015 14:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Human endurance and economics limit just how hair-raising these rides can get
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
  Read more

• 'Brainprints' Pick Out an Individual from the Crowd

  14-10-2015 14:00 via rss.sciam.com
  
  Researchers identify people by the way their brains are wired
  -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
  Read more

Follow @ScienceUKnews on Twitter!